[From article]
"the one issue Mr. Bollinger won’t come near. Traditional major media outlets — both print and TV — have seen declining revenues in large part because fewer and fewer believe any longer what they say. Objectivity isn’t merely a thing of the past for these news outlets, it’s openly mocked as impossible by the J-school grads who control them."
http://bigjournalism.com/jperren/2010/08/05/in-arguing-for-federal-press-subsidies-lee-bollinger-advocates-a-fascist-media/
In Arguing for Federal Press Subsidies, Lee Bollinger Advocates a Fascist Media
Posted by Jeff Perren
BigJournalism.com
Aug 5th 2010 at 12:14 pm
Showing posts with label Lee Bollinger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lee Bollinger. Show all posts
August 5, 2010
July 19, 2010
Columbia Journalism School
http://bigjournalism.com/aklavan/2010/07/19/columbia-university-vs-the-murdoch-effect/
Columbia University vs. The Murdoch Effect
Posted by Andrew Klavan
Jul 19th 2010 at 3:51 pm
BigJournalism.com
Columbia University vs. The Murdoch Effect
Posted by Andrew Klavan
Jul 19th 2010 at 3:51 pm
BigJournalism.com
February 27, 2010
January 13, 2009
Emotionally disturbed are violent?
It is troubling that the Columbia President was assaulted. But it is also troubling that he believes that the assault occurred because the person "was under psychiatric treatment." Does Columbia's President believe that all persons "under psychiatric treatment" are violent? That is stereotyping which the President would never tolerate toward other groups of vulnerable persons. What explains Bollinger's venomous attitude toward persons with disabilities? The statement issued by the Office of Public Affairs is no less offensive. Is it official university policy that emotionally disturbed persons (persons with disabilities) are known to be violent too? What happened to treating all persons equal? Are only black persons, homosexuals, women and illegal aliens entitled to equal protection of the laws?
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2008/12/03/bollinger-assaulted-while-running-park
Bollinger Assaulted While Running in Park
By Joy Resmovits
Columbia Spectator
Published December 02, 2008
joy.resmovits (at) columbiaspectator.com
It is troubling that the Columbia President was assaulted. But it is also troubling that he believes that the assault occurred because the person "was under psychiatric treatment." Does Columbia's President believe that all persons "under psychiatric treatment" are violent? That is stereotyping which the President would never tolerate toward other groups of vulnerable persons. What explains Bollinger's venomous attitude toward persons with disabilities? The statement issued by the Office of Public Affairs is no less offensive. Is it official university policy that emotionally disturbed persons (persons with disabilities) are known to be violent too? What happened to treating all persons equal? Are only black persons, homosexuals, women and illegal aliens entitled to equal protection of the laws?
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2008/12/03/bollinger-assaulted-while-running-park
Bollinger Assaulted While Running in Park
By Joy Resmovits
Columbia Spectator
Published December 02, 2008
joy.resmovits (at) columbiaspectator.com
October 19, 2008
More Columbia University Censorship
More Columbia University Censorship
This is typical Columbia University support for left-wing censorship. Political speech is interfered with by Obama censor-thugs. This objective Columbia Free Speech advocate attacks the attempt to to silence the censor thugs. That is how free speech is defended at Columbia. Where did this Obama propagandist learn that, from Lee Bollinger?
Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/mccain_incites_media_violence.php
Attack Media
GOP rhetoric bears responsibility for attack on reporter at Palin rally
Columbia Journalism Review
By Justin Peters
Fri 17 Oct 2008 04:59 PM
This is typical Columbia University support for left-wing censorship. Political speech is interfered with by Obama censor-thugs. This objective Columbia Free Speech advocate attacks the attempt to to silence the censor thugs. That is how free speech is defended at Columbia. Where did this Obama propagandist learn that, from Lee Bollinger?
Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/mccain_incites_media_violence.php
Attack Media
GOP rhetoric bears responsibility for attack on reporter at Palin rally
Columbia Journalism Review
By Justin Peters
Fri 17 Oct 2008 04:59 PM
October 7, 2007
Obama and Imus
Obama and Imus
Perhaps the reason that Barack "Obama did not address whether he thought
Imus should be taken off the air." is that he thinks more in terms of law than
Al Sharpton or corporate executives. (Rick Klein and Joseph Williams, "Obama's
silence on Imus alarms some blacks," Boston Globe, April 11, 2007) Sharpton sees
through the prism of race. Corporate executives see the world through the botton
line.
The reaction to Imus indicates how fragile the state of free speech is in
the US. Imus' comments are protected under the US Constitution. That should be
the only issue. Corporate executives don't focus on freedoms. Obama's silence on
protecting protected speech is a more important concern due to his prominent
history at Harvard Law School as President of the Law Review. If he does not
support free speech who does?
Saying his comments are racist is inaccurate. But even if they were racism
is a personal or political opinion. Intolerant censors promote the idea that a
person cannot have personal or political thoughts that they do not like. Again
the idea of racism is a constitutionally protected idea and opinion.
More importantly what is the offense to Al Sharpton? If he has any
connection with any law enforcement agency as he had historically he is
violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of Imus.
When police, prosecutors and journalists insult people with disabilities
every day there is loud silence from journalists, politicians and all of these
alleged compassionate liberal hypocrite censors. Speech critical of wealthy,
powerful and politically connected groups is not tolerated. The notion that
African Americans are weak in this country is nonsense. When a white
heterosexual male is brutalized there is no national spokesman who denounces the
abuse.
Collectivism has destroyed the freedoms formerly enjoyed by all citizens of this
nation. Now it is only members of the above groups who enjoy those rights.
The notion of free speech is for speech you hate. Everyone supports speech
that they like. The decreasing level of tolerance for unpopular speech is
dangerous.
In Cambridge, MA where Harvard and MIT reside there is almost total
opposition to critical speech. Criticizing politicians, the universities and
most of the sacred liberal cows is shunned. Only hated Republicans and mental
patients in the one-party state are acceptable targets for criticism.
Critics of global warming are threatened with job loss just as Imus is
threatened. A recent President of Harvard was forced to resign by the power of
women that he criticized. At Columbia a free speech expert, Lee Bollinger feared
punishing a group of thugs who disrupted a lecture. Presidents of NYU, Cornell,
Tufts, Pace and many other colleges in recent years showed they lack spines to
support free speech.
Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
Obama's silence on Imus alarms some blacks
Candidate faces first test on handling issues of race
By Rick Klein and Joseph Williams,
Boston Globe Staff
April 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- With the Rev. Al Sharpton leading calls Monday for radio host Don
Imus to be fired over racially insensitive remarks, Senator Barack Obama's
presidential campaign avoided the controversy throughout the day.
Not until Monday evening, five days after Imus's comments were uttered and hours
after CBS Radio and MSNBC announced a two-week suspension for the radio host,
did Obama weigh in, saying in a statement: "The comments of Don Imus were
divisive, hurtful, and offensive to Americans of all backgrounds." Obama did not
address whether he thought Imus should be taken off the air.
The episode is the first test of how Obama -- who is of mixed-race background --
is handling the contentious issue of race in his presidential campaign. Even as
polls have shown other Democrats attracting a large share of the black vote,
Obama has steered clear of the kind of activism symbolized by Sharpton and the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who were both highly visible in the Imus episode but whose
aggressiveness on race issues has alienated some white voters in the past.
But with Obama battling other Democrats -- most notably Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton of New York -- for the support of black voters, the candidate's
reticence on the Imus issue set off alarms yesterday among some black activists
who are anxious to see him more forcefully push for racial justice.
Melissa Harris Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at
Princeton University, said Obama missed an opportunity to prove himself to
blacks and white liberals who would have wanted Obama take the lead in
denouncing Imus.
"This was so easy, and his unwillingness to touch it tells me this is going to
be his third rail, and race never goes away in politics," Harris Lacewell said.
"Black people want to love Barack. They're doing everything they can to love
Barack. We want to believe that Barack is better than this. But they will turn
on him."
The Obama campaign declined to comment yesterday on its handling of the issue.
One adviser pointed out, however, that Obama issued a public comment before the
other major Democratic candidates -- including Clinton and former senator John
Edwards of North Carolina.
Obama represents a break with the presidential candidacies of forebears such as
Sharpton, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, and Jackson, who ran in
1984 and 1988.
Obama is the son of a white mother and a black father from Kenya, and grew up in
Hawaii and Indonesia. He is part of a generation too young to be shaped directly
by the civil rights movement; he was 6 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was
slain in 1968.
Obama told CBS's "60 Minutes" earlier this year that he is rooted in the
African-American community, but not defined by it.
In a closely watched speech last month in Selma, Ala., Obama declared that he
was part of the "Joshua generation" -- likening himself to the Biblical
successor to Moses who led the Jewish people into the promised land -- and thus
located himself in the post-liberation generation.
While acknowledging debts to civil rights pioneers, Obama has made clear that he
represents a different kind of politics, rooted deeply in coalition-building,
not anger and outrage.
"He's cut from a different cloth, and that doesn't make him less black," said
Joyce Ferriabough, a Boston-based Democratic consultant who is African-American.
"His way of doing things is a lot more measured, less fiery, but that doesn't
make him less effective. He needs to be the candidate of the people, and the
people aren't just black."
Ron Walters, a former top campaign aide to Jackson and now a politics professor
at the University of Maryland, said that if Obama took on a issue like Imus's
comments, he could undercut his appeal to the broad electorate.
"There are people that are just waiting for him to jump out there in the
crosshairs and be a race leader," Walters said. If Obama spoke out, "that would
put him in a different role: a race leader. And that would pull back the covers
for those who don't see race when they look at Barack Obama."
Yet Obama's promise to take up the mantle of past civil rights activists and his
showing in the polls have not assuaged the concerns of some black leaders,
including Sharpton, that Obama isn't sufficiently committed to the causes they
hold dear. With Clinton also earning significant black support and her husband,
the former president, still widely popular among black voters, those qualms
among prominent blacks could have electoral consequences for Obama.
Sharpton has repeatedly said that Obama did not learn the lessons of the civil
rights movement, including the value of bold stands and dramatic action.
"I agree with him that we are part of the Joshua generation, but Joshua came
from the ranks of Moses to continue the struggle and not to abandon the
struggle," Sharpton told the Washington Times last month. "Being a part of the
Joshua generation is based on your work and not your age."
Though Jackson lined up behind Obama two weeks ago, Sharpton has pointedly
refused to endorse Obama, sparking speculation that he will support Clinton --
his home-state senator -- instead. Sharpton has said he will not endorse any
candidate until hearing more about their views on civil rights and other issues
at his National Action Network convention next week in New York City.
Michael Eric Dyson, a University of Pennsylvania professor and author, said he
supports Obama's campaign but questions why he did not speak up more forcefully
about Imus. He added that the other presidential candidates had the same
responsibility.
"Here's the point: Paying attention to the issues of race is an American
concern," he said. "It looks as if he's being so careful and cautious not to
ruffle the feathers of the mainstream that he may inadvertently raise the
hackles of the black majority."
Harris Lacewell, the Princeton professor, said Obama's willingness to cede the
spotlight to Sharpton on the Imus issue could leave such veteran activists more
powerful in the black community -- and therefore tougher to win over.
Ferriabough, the Democratic consultant, said Obama's campaign is tied to the
candidate's personal energy and charisma, rather than those who are declaring
their support for him.
"Endorsements won't make or break this candidate," said Ferriabough, who said
she has not committed to supporting any candidate but is leaning toward Obama.
"Obama doesn't need to go on the soapbox," Ferriabough said. "Others are doing
it, led by Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. He's nipping at Hillary, so he's playing
for real."
Perhaps the reason that Barack "Obama did not address whether he thought
Imus should be taken off the air." is that he thinks more in terms of law than
Al Sharpton or corporate executives. (Rick Klein and Joseph Williams, "Obama's
silence on Imus alarms some blacks," Boston Globe, April 11, 2007) Sharpton sees
through the prism of race. Corporate executives see the world through the botton
line.
The reaction to Imus indicates how fragile the state of free speech is in
the US. Imus' comments are protected under the US Constitution. That should be
the only issue. Corporate executives don't focus on freedoms. Obama's silence on
protecting protected speech is a more important concern due to his prominent
history at Harvard Law School as President of the Law Review. If he does not
support free speech who does?
Saying his comments are racist is inaccurate. But even if they were racism
is a personal or political opinion. Intolerant censors promote the idea that a
person cannot have personal or political thoughts that they do not like. Again
the idea of racism is a constitutionally protected idea and opinion.
More importantly what is the offense to Al Sharpton? If he has any
connection with any law enforcement agency as he had historically he is
violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of Imus.
When police, prosecutors and journalists insult people with disabilities
every day there is loud silence from journalists, politicians and all of these
alleged compassionate liberal hypocrite censors. Speech critical of wealthy,
powerful and politically connected groups is not tolerated. The notion that
African Americans are weak in this country is nonsense. When a white
heterosexual male is brutalized there is no national spokesman who denounces the
abuse.
Collectivism has destroyed the freedoms formerly enjoyed by all citizens of this
nation. Now it is only members of the above groups who enjoy those rights.
The notion of free speech is for speech you hate. Everyone supports speech
that they like. The decreasing level of tolerance for unpopular speech is
dangerous.
In Cambridge, MA where Harvard and MIT reside there is almost total
opposition to critical speech. Criticizing politicians, the universities and
most of the sacred liberal cows is shunned. Only hated Republicans and mental
patients in the one-party state are acceptable targets for criticism.
Critics of global warming are threatened with job loss just as Imus is
threatened. A recent President of Harvard was forced to resign by the power of
women that he criticized. At Columbia a free speech expert, Lee Bollinger feared
punishing a group of thugs who disrupted a lecture. Presidents of NYU, Cornell,
Tufts, Pace and many other colleges in recent years showed they lack spines to
support free speech.
Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
Obama's silence on Imus alarms some blacks
Candidate faces first test on handling issues of race
By Rick Klein and Joseph Williams,
Boston Globe Staff
April 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- With the Rev. Al Sharpton leading calls Monday for radio host Don
Imus to be fired over racially insensitive remarks, Senator Barack Obama's
presidential campaign avoided the controversy throughout the day.
Not until Monday evening, five days after Imus's comments were uttered and hours
after CBS Radio and MSNBC announced a two-week suspension for the radio host,
did Obama weigh in, saying in a statement: "The comments of Don Imus were
divisive, hurtful, and offensive to Americans of all backgrounds." Obama did not
address whether he thought Imus should be taken off the air.
The episode is the first test of how Obama -- who is of mixed-race background --
is handling the contentious issue of race in his presidential campaign. Even as
polls have shown other Democrats attracting a large share of the black vote,
Obama has steered clear of the kind of activism symbolized by Sharpton and the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who were both highly visible in the Imus episode but whose
aggressiveness on race issues has alienated some white voters in the past.
But with Obama battling other Democrats -- most notably Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton of New York -- for the support of black voters, the candidate's
reticence on the Imus issue set off alarms yesterday among some black activists
who are anxious to see him more forcefully push for racial justice.
Melissa Harris Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at
Princeton University, said Obama missed an opportunity to prove himself to
blacks and white liberals who would have wanted Obama take the lead in
denouncing Imus.
"This was so easy, and his unwillingness to touch it tells me this is going to
be his third rail, and race never goes away in politics," Harris Lacewell said.
"Black people want to love Barack. They're doing everything they can to love
Barack. We want to believe that Barack is better than this. But they will turn
on him."
The Obama campaign declined to comment yesterday on its handling of the issue.
One adviser pointed out, however, that Obama issued a public comment before the
other major Democratic candidates -- including Clinton and former senator John
Edwards of North Carolina.
Obama represents a break with the presidential candidacies of forebears such as
Sharpton, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, and Jackson, who ran in
1984 and 1988.
Obama is the son of a white mother and a black father from Kenya, and grew up in
Hawaii and Indonesia. He is part of a generation too young to be shaped directly
by the civil rights movement; he was 6 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was
slain in 1968.
Obama told CBS's "60 Minutes" earlier this year that he is rooted in the
African-American community, but not defined by it.
In a closely watched speech last month in Selma, Ala., Obama declared that he
was part of the "Joshua generation" -- likening himself to the Biblical
successor to Moses who led the Jewish people into the promised land -- and thus
located himself in the post-liberation generation.
While acknowledging debts to civil rights pioneers, Obama has made clear that he
represents a different kind of politics, rooted deeply in coalition-building,
not anger and outrage.
"He's cut from a different cloth, and that doesn't make him less black," said
Joyce Ferriabough, a Boston-based Democratic consultant who is African-American.
"His way of doing things is a lot more measured, less fiery, but that doesn't
make him less effective. He needs to be the candidate of the people, and the
people aren't just black."
Ron Walters, a former top campaign aide to Jackson and now a politics professor
at the University of Maryland, said that if Obama took on a issue like Imus's
comments, he could undercut his appeal to the broad electorate.
"There are people that are just waiting for him to jump out there in the
crosshairs and be a race leader," Walters said. If Obama spoke out, "that would
put him in a different role: a race leader. And that would pull back the covers
for those who don't see race when they look at Barack Obama."
Yet Obama's promise to take up the mantle of past civil rights activists and his
showing in the polls have not assuaged the concerns of some black leaders,
including Sharpton, that Obama isn't sufficiently committed to the causes they
hold dear. With Clinton also earning significant black support and her husband,
the former president, still widely popular among black voters, those qualms
among prominent blacks could have electoral consequences for Obama.
Sharpton has repeatedly said that Obama did not learn the lessons of the civil
rights movement, including the value of bold stands and dramatic action.
"I agree with him that we are part of the Joshua generation, but Joshua came
from the ranks of Moses to continue the struggle and not to abandon the
struggle," Sharpton told the Washington Times last month. "Being a part of the
Joshua generation is based on your work and not your age."
Though Jackson lined up behind Obama two weeks ago, Sharpton has pointedly
refused to endorse Obama, sparking speculation that he will support Clinton --
his home-state senator -- instead. Sharpton has said he will not endorse any
candidate until hearing more about their views on civil rights and other issues
at his National Action Network convention next week in New York City.
Michael Eric Dyson, a University of Pennsylvania professor and author, said he
supports Obama's campaign but questions why he did not speak up more forcefully
about Imus. He added that the other presidential candidates had the same
responsibility.
"Here's the point: Paying attention to the issues of race is an American
concern," he said. "It looks as if he's being so careful and cautious not to
ruffle the feathers of the mainstream that he may inadvertently raise the
hackles of the black majority."
Harris Lacewell, the Princeton professor, said Obama's willingness to cede the
spotlight to Sharpton on the Imus issue could leave such veteran activists more
powerful in the black community -- and therefore tougher to win over.
Ferriabough, the Democratic consultant, said Obama's campaign is tied to the
candidate's personal energy and charisma, rather than those who are declaring
their support for him.
"Endorsements won't make or break this candidate," said Ferriabough, who said
she has not committed to supporting any candidate but is leaning toward Obama.
"Obama doesn't need to go on the soapbox," Ferriabough said. "Others are doing
it, led by Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. He's nipping at Hillary, so he's playing
for real."
March 10, 2007
Free Speech for Some of Us
Free Speech for Some of Us
Lee Bollinger Columbia's President "published numerous books, articles, and essays in scholarly journals on free speech and First Amendment issues [including] 'Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era,''Images of a Free Press,' and 'The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America.'" For some people books and literature are only an academic exercise. Is Lee Bollinger the assisted suicide academic?
--
Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA
COLUMBIA'S SPEECH THUGS
New York Post
October 6, 2006
-- New generation, same ugly tactics. Nearly 40 years after activist students trashed the executive offices of Columbia University (all in the name of "peace," don't you know), another crowd of young hooligans Wednesday violently broke up a speech at the Ivy League campus - physically attacking the speaker, forcing him to flee and sparking a brawl. This time, the cause is "free speech."
No kidding. Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, which takes an aggressive role in opposing illegal immigration, had been invited to speak by the campus Republican organization. But he barely got in a few words before protesters - who had heckled a previous speaker with racially offensive slogans - rushed the stage and prevented him from finishing. (Video of the melee is available at columbiaspectator.org.)
"It was fundamentally a part of free speech," one protester told The Columbia Daily Spectator. "The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration." Can it be true that free speech at Columbia applies only to those who are deemed "legitimate" by a self-proclaimed group of political purists? So it would seem. And, sad to say, Wednesday night's fracas was no isolated incident. And, even more sad, it's not just students who have made Columbia so inhospitable to the First Amendment.
Conservatives, supporters of Israel and others who want to win the War on Terror routinely see their First Amendment rights trashed - while the university throws open its doors to tyrants like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the latter invitation being withdrawn under extreme public pressure). On a seemingly more mundane level - though the principle is important - the university recently suspended an ice-hockey club after supporters passed out recruitment flyers that contained a mildly offensive gender reference. It was a misdemeanor if ever there was one - but Columbia dropped the hammer on the hockey club anyway, citing "an egregious violation of the rights of the students involved."
Well, if a sophomoric jibe on a piece of paper constitutes an "egregious violation," what does the violent, racially charged disruption of an appearance by a university-sanctioned guest represent? What about the students whose right to hear the Minutemen was violated by a gaggle of left-wing louts? They don't count? Apparently not. University officials haven't denounced what happened, though they've launched an "investigation." (Of course they have.)
Let's be clear here. Columbia has a long and proud relationship with New York City. Until lately, it has been a champion of the principles and values that make the city a beacon of freedom to the world. Again, until lately. Now Columbia is in the midst of a long-overdue refurbishment and expansion of its northern Manhattan campus. And university President Lee Bollinger is asking much forbearance of the institution's neighbors - and of City Hall - in order to make it happen.
Incidents like Wednesday's outburst - if not swiftly punished by Bollinger and his administrators - make us wonder whether helping Columbia is worth the effort. Thuggery of the sort that occurred Wednesday is unacceptable anywhere - least of all at a great university.
Lee Bollinger Columbia's President "published numerous books, articles, and essays in scholarly journals on free speech and First Amendment issues [including] 'Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era,''Images of a Free Press,' and 'The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America.'" For some people books and literature are only an academic exercise. Is Lee Bollinger the assisted suicide academic?
--
Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA
COLUMBIA'S SPEECH THUGS
New York Post
October 6, 2006
-- New generation, same ugly tactics. Nearly 40 years after activist students trashed the executive offices of Columbia University (all in the name of "peace," don't you know), another crowd of young hooligans Wednesday violently broke up a speech at the Ivy League campus - physically attacking the speaker, forcing him to flee and sparking a brawl. This time, the cause is "free speech."
No kidding. Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, which takes an aggressive role in opposing illegal immigration, had been invited to speak by the campus Republican organization. But he barely got in a few words before protesters - who had heckled a previous speaker with racially offensive slogans - rushed the stage and prevented him from finishing. (Video of the melee is available at columbiaspectator.org.)
"It was fundamentally a part of free speech," one protester told The Columbia Daily Spectator. "The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration." Can it be true that free speech at Columbia applies only to those who are deemed "legitimate" by a self-proclaimed group of political purists? So it would seem. And, sad to say, Wednesday night's fracas was no isolated incident. And, even more sad, it's not just students who have made Columbia so inhospitable to the First Amendment.
Conservatives, supporters of Israel and others who want to win the War on Terror routinely see their First Amendment rights trashed - while the university throws open its doors to tyrants like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the latter invitation being withdrawn under extreme public pressure). On a seemingly more mundane level - though the principle is important - the university recently suspended an ice-hockey club after supporters passed out recruitment flyers that contained a mildly offensive gender reference. It was a misdemeanor if ever there was one - but Columbia dropped the hammer on the hockey club anyway, citing "an egregious violation of the rights of the students involved."
Well, if a sophomoric jibe on a piece of paper constitutes an "egregious violation," what does the violent, racially charged disruption of an appearance by a university-sanctioned guest represent? What about the students whose right to hear the Minutemen was violated by a gaggle of left-wing louts? They don't count? Apparently not. University officials haven't denounced what happened, though they've launched an "investigation." (Of course they have.)
Let's be clear here. Columbia has a long and proud relationship with New York City. Until lately, it has been a champion of the principles and values that make the city a beacon of freedom to the world. Again, until lately. Now Columbia is in the midst of a long-overdue refurbishment and expansion of its northern Manhattan campus. And university President Lee Bollinger is asking much forbearance of the institution's neighbors - and of City Hall - in order to make it happen.
Incidents like Wednesday's outburst - if not swiftly punished by Bollinger and his administrators - make us wonder whether helping Columbia is worth the effort. Thuggery of the sort that occurred Wednesday is unacceptable anywhere - least of all at a great university.
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